Olivia Dodd, Bristo Square

Author and central character in

‘The Poetess’

Edinburgh Fringe Festival, The Pleasance Dome, Jul 30th - Aug 25th, 2025

Tell me a little of your story, and how you’ve came to be in Edinburgh performing The Poetess.

“So, I was born in New Hampshire, out in the middle of the woods. I had a lovely childhood out there and that was where I fell in love with Shakespeare, primarily. I was the weird kid analysing sonnets in my bedroom while my friends were out partying. Then I realised that acting could be a full-time job. I was like, oh, people do this for a living! So I auditioned for the big top drama schools in New York City that were also in London. I knew I wanted classical conservatory style training. 

I got into the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama on the BA acting course, so I went off at 18 and did that. Then I fell in love with London. I was like, no, I can't just go back to the woods of New Hampshire, and I didn't want to be in New York City either. I just felt it was too big. London felt more manageable. So I started my life doing stuff there. But the acting industry is tough. You have to wait for others to give you permission to create, and I was sick and tired of that. So I heard about this concept of typewriter poetry and thought hmm ... “ 

Where did you hear about that?  

“I'd seen other poets in the US doing it - just popping up in certain places doing this thing called typewriter poetry. I was like, I want to try that. I think I could do that. I'd written poems for friends and family before, but I'd never tried it just on the spot. So I started doing it at some events where it was at a bit of a slower pace, and then I just took my typewriter out to the park and offered ‘Poetry for Strangers’.”

And was that well received?

“Yes, I'm always really surprised. I wouldn't ask for people to come over to me. I would just sit and be typing on my typewriter and let people approach as they wanted. Usually people are like, Oh, what's Poetry for Strangers? Or, What are you doing? Or, oh, my dad had one of those typewriters … and then we'd get into conversation. I'd then say, I'm writing poetry for people walking by, can I write something for you? People are usually taken aback a little that I'm just offering space for them to just chat and for me to listen to them. So, then I developed the practise of encouraging them to open up asking, okay, tell me something that's on your mind or your heart.”

Have you always had that capacity to connect with people?  

“I've always been quite an empathetic person. I always felt really deeply. I feel a lot of things, and that's why I think why I was drawn to acting. What made me fall in love with acting is the fact that that is just an exploration of how to be present with somebody else, and how to read other people's emotions. So it felt very natural with my acting background to meld it together this form of typewriter poetry.”  

Where did the inspiration come from for ‘The Poetess’?  

“It's quite a story. I was writing poetry at an event like I normally do, and I wrote a poem for a gentleman. He really seemed to like it, and he asked for my email address. I didn't think anything of it but then he emailed me and asked me to go for a coffee to talk about poetry. I was like, okay, let's see. He told me during our coffee that his dream was to bring a show about poetry to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He's a retired GP and fell in love with poetry in his retirement. He’d been to the Edinburgh Fringe a lot but was frustrated that there wasn't a lot of poetry available. It was all stand-up and comedy, and he thought that this concept of typewriter poetry could really offer something. So we said, let’s do it. That was about a year ago from now that that conversation happened.”

Had you written a play before?  

“No. It was all poetry. I had written some monologue, one-woman show type things, but I hadn't written a whole one-hour play. That was completely new.”  

How did you set about creating that? 

“I did a lot of research, read a lot of books about playwriting and about story structure. As humans we know in a story when the crisis point should be, when the character should be going through this, etc, so there's a little bit of a roadmap there. Then I did a really early first draft which meant just writing whatever I was passionate about without trying hard to fit it into a story. Then we had a research and development process, which is quite regular for new writing, where you chuck it into a room with a bunch of actors, get them up doing it, and say, okay does this work? No. Does this work? Yes. And you just start playing around with things. Then I could go away and fine-tune it and really crack what the story should be.” 

What was the hardest part of that process?  

“Writing the very beginning and the very ending of the play. I only wrote the first scene and the last scene in June.”

Is there a particular part of the play that hits you emotionally as you're delivering it?

“Yeah. The story is based on my real life quite a bit. They say good writers should write what you know. My grandmother is still alive and with us, I only get to see her like once a year because I live so far away. So, you know, I’m exploring the idea of grief and just the guilt around feeling like I don't call her enough. We exchange letters, my grandmother and I, so that is very much based on my real life. I feel immense guilt if I forget one week to write her a letter or she sends me one and I realise I haven't written one in like a month; so there's plenty of my own emotions that I'm putting into the show.” 

At one point there were real tears in your eyes as you performed. I wondered, how do you do that? But it's connected to your story, right?  

“It is. It's a combination of my acting training with what they call the Stanislavski method, where you use your own memories to trigger an emotional response, but doing it in a very safe way. So I have a post-show, cool-down process so that I don't feel like I've opened up anything that then I can't deal with for the rest of the day, and I remain as myself, Olivia, the human being, and in a safe place to deliver the show every day.” 

So Olivia and Viola – the main character – are not only an anagram, but are really very closely connected? 

“Absolutely.”

Would you aspire to write more plays based on your own experience of life?  

“I would. And even experiences that I haven't quite lived yet. I really enjoyed the playwriting process more than I thought I would. I’d even love to explore writing something for somebody else and not acting in it. Yeah, who knows?!” 

It’s early days yet in Edinburgh, but how has the audience reaction been for you?  

“It's been beautiful. People have been messaging me every day on my Instagram who have come to the show, either saying that they didn't expect poetry to have such an effect on them, or that they didn't realise that poetry could make them feel some sort of way. That’s really why I wrote the show, so that's amazing. Also, they didn't expect to relate to Viola's character as much in her difficulty with being vulnerable and opening up. People see parallels to their own lives with that. So it's been beautiful feedback.”  

What would you like people to carry away from The Poetess into their own lives? 

“What it means to be present and to give somebody else, even a stranger, just five minutes of your time and just be yourself with them and not try and put on a mask or a facade and just really be comfortable in your own skin.”

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